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Osama’s Dead

(Brick’s Picks, LA Weekly—what appeared in print was radically copy-edited thank god. Not sure which of these I turned in, or maybe I turned in another draft. This was early May, 2011 and I had quit the week before but the paper said I’d be back the following week but my heart wasn’t in it. I just hated writing Brick’s Picks by this point. Eventually split the end of July when yet another editor came aboard and I just didn’t feel like dealing with another editor. I was a prick about it, one of those take this job and shove it things that left the poor bastard bewildered and sending me the proper rules of pronunciation. Ya wanna stay on my good side you don’t send me the proper rules of pronunciation, especially after I’d already quit….Oh, the line about drinking myself into a coma is a lie.)

So Sunday night we’re writing this column, snickering, feeling pretty good. We flip on the TV and some newscaster’s babbling, just beside himself with excitement. Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead. The foreign correspondent agreed. Osama’s dead. The experts chimed in. Osama’s dead. The kids singing the national anthem outside the White House chimed in. Osama’s dead. The people in New York City agreed. Osama was dead, so dead. And we looked at our column, and it was dead. Every single writer and blogger looked at what they were typing and said the same damn thing: Osama’s dead. So every gardening and fishing and bondage and music and political column written Monday morning says Osama’s dead. But just to be different we’ll just stick with what we wrote and hope no one notices.

But we’ll keep it short. We apologized for skipping last week. The Kings got knocked out of the NHL playoffs, you see, and we drank ourselves into a coma. We’ll get ‘em next season. We mentioned talking with late great L.A. jazz jock Chuck Niles about the L.A. Kings. He said we’ll get ‘em next season. Segued into his funeral. It got quite poignant here. Then back to jazz and drinking whiskey and it almost made sense. Then it went off the deep end about hockey and jazz. It’d take too long to explain now, but basically we like to listen to crazy hard ass jazz while watching hockey. Crazier the better. The logic got pretty tenuous from then on. We somehow mentioned AC/DC and jazz critics and chasing Mingus with an ax all in one sentence. Claimed we thought of that next to the stage one night at Charlie O’s. We did, actually, but never mind. Then we wrote a bunch of stuff about jazz and fucking shit up, as Donald Trump might put it. Though we didn’t say Trump, just “a leading Republican presidential contender”. It was very topical. That’s what we were snickering at when they told us Osama’s dead. So never mind. Here’s some shows, though.

Take 2:

So last night we’re typing up this column, snickering, feeling pretty good. Then a bus driver calls. Brick—turn on the TV—they got Obama. He sounded excited. Bus drivers never sound excited. So we flipped on the TV and there, where Donald Trump should have been, some newscaster was babbling, just beside himself with excitement. Mama done took him to Disneyland. Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead. The foreign correspondent agreed. Osama’s dead. The experts chimed in. Osama’s dead. The kids singing the national anthem outside the White House chimed in. Osama’s dead. The people in New York City agreed. Osama was dead, so dead. And we looked at our column, and it was dead. Every single writer and every single blogger looked at what they were typing and said the same damn thing. Osama’s dead. And every single gardening and fishing and bondage and music and political column written this morning says Osama’s dead. Which of course means we can’t. So we’ll just stick with what we wrote and hope no one notices.

Unfortunately we already wasted space telling you Osama’s dead. So we’ll run through what we wrote. We opened by apologizing for skipping last week. Said the Kings got knocked out of the NHL playoffs and we drank ourselves into a coma. Said we’ll get ‘em next season. Then went on about talking to legendary L.A. jazz deejay with Chuck Niles about the L.A. Kings. He said we’ll get ‘em next season. The about his funeral. It got quite poignant here. Then we went on about the L.A. Kings and jazz and drinking whiskey and it almost made sense. Then it went off the deep end about hockey and jazz. It’d take too long to explain now, but basically we like to listen to crazy hard ass jazz while listening to hockey. Crazier the better. The logic got pretty tenuous from then on. We somehow mentioned AC/DC and jazz critics and chasing Mingus with an ax all in one sentence. Claimed we thought of that sipping whiskey next to the stage one night at Charlie O’s. We did actually, but never mind. Then we wrote a bunch of stuff about fucking shit up, as Donald Trump might put it. Though we didn’t say Trump, just “a leading Republican presidential contender”. It was very topical. That’s what we were snickering at when the bus driver called and told us Osama’s dead. So never mind. Here’s some shows, though.

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